The Great War and the transformation of Habsburg central Europe
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Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2025
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JUDSON, Pieter M., ZAHRA, Tara, The Great War and the transformation of Habsburg central Europe, Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2025 - https://hdl.handle.net/1814/93704
Abstract
The Great War and the Transformation of Habsburg Central Europe examines how the First World War transformed the multinational Austro-Hungarian Monarchy into a fractured landscape of mistrust, scarcity, and dissolution and laid the foundation for the new postwar world. The outcome of the war is not, it argues, evidence of the inherent fragility of multinational polities, and Austria-Hungary was not inevitably doomed to collapse on the eve of the war. Instead, it contends that the Habsburg state laid the groundwork for its own dissolution by turning on its citizens. By imposing military rule, suspending civil rights, fostering suspicions among its citizens based on the languages they spoke, and failing to secure enough food to feed the population, the Habsburg state both created new and exacerbated existing regional, local, religious, and national antagonisms. Over time, severe hardships on the home front, in occupied territories, and in refugee and prisoner-of-war camps spurred widespread resentment and eroded loyalty to the monarchy. But even as the Empire frayed, the war inspired innovative institutions, social welfare measures, and new understandings of citizenship that continued to influence postwar Europe. The book analyzes these experiences at multiple scales—local, imperial, and international—to demonstrate the shared transregional experiences of women, workers, and children and to emphasize the close interconnections between the social and cultural history of the Empire to its political, economic, and military history.
Table of Contents
-- Introduction: The Great War and the Transformation of Habsburg Central Europe
-- 1 Why War? Austria-Hungary, Europe, the World, 1900–1914
-- 2 Mobilizations
-- 3 The Fortunes of War: Occupation Regimes
-- 4 The Empire in Camps: Refugees & POWS
-- 5 Entitled Citizens: Empire, Citizenship, and the Welfare State
-- 6 Revolutions
-- 7 The Enduring Empire
-- Conclusion: Continuities, Legacies, Memories
Additional Information
Published online: 25 August 2025